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Surang Prempree

Thai TV mogul Surang Prempree becomes a billionaire for the first time thanks in part to the strong performance of BBTV, Bank of Ayudhya, Siam City Cement and other companies controlled by fellow Thai rich lister Krit Ratanarak. She is now worth just over $1 billion, up from $930 million in July, when we published our 2013 list of Thailand’s richest.

Surang, 70, a television executive known for the dramatic nighttime soap operas she produces and as the organizer of the Thailand Miss Universe pageant, has strong family ties to the media business. Her late mother co-founded Bangkok Broadcasting & TV (BBTV) in 1967 with Ratanarak’s late father Chuan, and Surang became the broadcaster’s managing director in 1985.

BBTV’s Channel 7 is the country’s most popular station, but the company doesn’t just do media. It also acts as a holding company for stakes in many of the businesses Surang and Krit’s families control, including Bank of Ayudhya and Siam City Cement. Those companies have seen 400% and 300% growth, respectively, in the past five years, pushing the value of Surang’s 21% stake in BBTV from $85 million when we started tracking her in 2006 to just over $1 billion today.

Despite shared holdings and decades working together, Surang and Krit are reportedly at odds. In 2011, after 26 years at the helm of BBTV’s television operations, she was asked to leave by Krit, who owns a majority stake in BBTV. Not ready to abandon television production, she started making shows for competitor Channel 3, owned by another Thai tycoon, Vichai Maleenont in 2012.

Surang’s production company Chan 25 is bidding on one of the new HD channels set to start airing in Thailand sometime next few year. BBTV, which she still owns a big chunk of, is also in the bidding, meaning she’ll be competing against herself if both companies get new channels. To resolve matters, BBTV has reportedly offered to buy out her billion-dollar stake, but so far she has refused.

Surang is Thailand’s second female billionaire after Praneetsilpa Vacharaphol, also in media, who shares her fortune with her children.